My First $200 Story Shows Why You Need to be Patient

And keep an eye on your stats.

If you’re wondering when your writing on Medium is going to start earning you some money, you need to figure out if there’s anything you can do to influence that directly. You also need to remember to be patient.

All of the top writers will tell you that their stories often see spikes in reader time and earnings long after they have been published.

You can see the progress of one of my recent stories from January to February here:

It began to spike early in January and then doubled in earnings in the space of one month, going from $87.56 at 2,000 views to $200.39 at nearly 3,000 views. The spike then tails off but it’s still earning me a steady small income and will probably continue to do so in the months ahead.

What can you do to influence and make your stories more likely to succeed and gain attention from your readers? It’s worth noting that I only had a handful of followers when I published this story. It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, if you’re writing stories that nobody sees.

Write stories of value to readers

If you have something unique and of value to bring to your readers, write about that. Don’t try to copy someone else’s work or topics that seem successful or popular. Most of the successful writers gain favor and a large following because of their unique experiences and their willingness to write honestly and with an authentic voice.

If my experience of narcissistic abuse taught me anything it is that it is sadly an experience shared by many, and there is a hunger for information about how to handle a relationship with a narcissist. So I wrote about it. Think about experiences you have had and what you have learned as a result. What can you write about that is unique and useful?

Find something in your life that interests you and write about it. Or find something that everyone is talking about online and add your perspective on the subject, relating it to your personal experience.

Good formatting is vital to guarantee distribution

You will note the word Distributed appears at the beginning of the graph of my story’s impact. This is the same as the old process of curation which enables stories to be more visible on the Medium homepage and in emails specific to people’s interests. But it is not essential for a post to go viral. Many posts exist on Medium that weren’t distributed initially but gained thousands of views and claps despite being overlooked for curation/distribution.

There is so much useful information about writing format to be found on the Medium platform itself. Many people don’t even know where to find it, as it’s hiding in among all the articles by writers giving you conflicting advice about how and what to write on Medium. Casey Botticello is the best go-to guy for real advice on how to blog on Medium like a pro.

Here is one of the most useful guides you will find anywhere on Medium, containing information about using Unsplash, embedding links and other essential tools to make your work stand out from the crowd:

Learn to be patient and keep writing

I published my story in November 2020, but it didn’t start gaining views and traction until early January. In the meantime life went on. I continued writing, publishing, watching and waiting. This account is my secondary one. On my primary account I have been writing for over a year and have many hundreds of followers. I love when I get feedback from my readers telling me my stories have helped them.

The truth is that I don’t know what triggered the sudden spike in reader time on my story. It only had a few hundred views generated from Medium emails, so it just seems to have had a moment on Medium itself. I always share stories on social media but that never generated a massive upsurge in views before.

The best thing you can try is to experiment and see what works. Everyone has to start somewhere. You can and should make every mistake in the book while you’re learning but as long as you learn and grow as a result of them you will improve.

I kept writing and building my audience. My purpose was to help people by sharing my experiences. I continue to try and do that and I hope that this will help to inspire and encourage you too.

I hoped my experiment in starting a new account would work and it did. I was able to write without worrying about my friends, family or work colleagues reading my stories. Anonymity is very freeing.

What have I learned from this first big success?

• Don’t worry if a story doesn’t take off right away
• Don’t lose hope and give up too soon
• Build on your success with stories geared to the audience you have gained
• Accept that there is an ebb and flow and not always exponential growth
• Don’t expect every story to do well just because one was a success

Watch your stats and learn from them

You can gain a lot of useful information about the response to your stories from looking at your stats. Click on your profile picture, select Stats from the dropdown menu and click on the option to “Learn more about using stats” at top right on your screen. You have instant access to so much useful feedback on how many views your stories have gained, the reader time and more.

You can work out which stories people took the time to read, which they clicked away from, which resonated and generated responses and what topics you need to focus on as a result.

Medium makes it incredibly easy to navigate around your stats and to access this information. How you use it is up to you.

If you enjoyed this, read my first $200 story here: